“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”
I woke up this morning to the news of Meat Loaf having passed away. The legendary rock singer whose “Bat Out of Hell” album became one of the best-selling of all time was 74.
Meat Loaf is probably best known for his song “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)" and for playing Eddie in the cult film “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
As I was listening to Meat Loaf’s music this morning as a tribute and reminder of his six-decade long career, Apple Music reminded me of several of his other classics, like “Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” that I had forgotten about.
Honestly, I’m not a big fan of Meat Loaf’s music, but just like the food, I don’t dislike it either. Having grown up in Dallas, and Meat Loaf being a fellow Dallasite, Meat Loaf tunes always seemed a bit more prevalent growing up—though that just might be a bit of revisionist history given the circumstances upon my current state of reflection.
In any event, one of the more memorable Meat Loaf songs is “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” While Meat Loaf sings about his current commitment issues stemming from a previous relationship (e.g., I want you, I need you, but I'll never love you), the title of the song indicates that checking off two-thirds of the criteria is good enough.
On the bar exam, too, two out of three ain’t bad. If you were to score 66.67% correct (let’s just say 65% for ease of math) on the MBE (and, again, let’s just say there’s 200 questions instead of 175 questions that are graded on the MBE), then 65% correct would equal 130 raw points, and the 130 raw points would likely be increased to about 139 to 142 scaled points, which is more than half the points one needs to pass the bar exam in jurisdictions with a 270 scaled passing score.
So your overall goal on the MBE is around 65% correct. But it’s important to know that you don’t necessarily have to earn 65% correct in each of the seven MBE subjects to reach that overall goal. Let’s face it—some MBE subjects are just more difficult than others, like Contracts and Real Property, where 55% correct might be an average raw score. Other MBE subjects, on the other hand, are typically easier, like Torts and Constitutional Law, where 75% might be the average score. (That’s one of the reasons why your percentile ranking in a particular subject doesn’t always correspond to your percent correct number.)
For you, your harder and easier MBE subjects might be different thank the ones identified above.
While the best case scenario is that you’re scoring 65% or higher in each of the seven MBE subjects, you don’t have to, and you don’t have to beat yourself up if you don’t. But just understand that for whatever subject you’re having difficulty in, you need to focus on another subject so that you can offset that lower score. For example, if you know you typically score 55% in Real Property, then work hard in Torts, for example, to score at least 75% consistently during your practice. That way, when you take those two subjects together, you’re averaging 65%, which is exactly where you want to be overall.
Your goal on the MBE is to get at least 65% of the available points. It doesn’t matter where the points come from.
As you move into the final weeks of bar preparation and you use BARBRI’s performance report from its Simulated MBE, identify two or three MBE subjects where your goal is to consistently score 75% correct or higher during your practice leading up to the bar exam. Then, identify two MBE subjects where your goal is to consistently score at least 55%. The remaining two or three subjects are areas where you want to aim for that average of 65%. If you do this, then your overall average should hit at least 65% correct in the end.
